


I Will Try To Fix You

by FedeLove96



Series: "You are a good person, Draco" [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3661752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FedeLove96/pseuds/FedeLove96
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Harry and Draco hadn't fought in that bathroom during their Sixth year at Hogwarts?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Try To Fix You

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic while in hospital, and I didn't exactly have time to let my beta proof-read, so SORRY FOR ANY TYPOS, MY BAD.

Nothing but thin air was left where the tall blonde boy had been sitting on the other side of the Slytherin table. One moment Draco was piercing through Harry’s skull with those penetrating silver eyes, and the next moment Harry was looking at the empty spot he’d left.

He looked around the Great Hall and searched for the almost-white mass of hair that was Draco’s head, but he found nothing.

Harry was probably the only one who’d noticed his sudden disappearance, since his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, were busy arguing about Lavender while Ron stuffed his mouth with mashed potatoes, carrots and peas.

He got up and walked away from the table, ignoring Hermione’s voice as she was asking him “Where are you going, Harry?”.

He left the room, and the only thing that was on his mind was Draco.

He’d clearly heard that they were talking about him, and so he sure as hell knew that, by now, they’d discovered his plan.

He was doing something sinister, surely connected to Voldemort, and Harry was convinced that it meant becoming a Death Eater. For him, it didn’t matter that Hermione thought he wasn’t being rational, that he was being driven by his ever-lasting hate for Malfoy, he just wanted to follow his instinct and see if he was right.

And he WAS right, he was sure of that.

He was roaming around the corridors, trying to think like Malfoy would to figure out where he might be hiding.

In the park? In the dungeons? Maybe in the bathrooms? He had seemed pretty upset when he caught Harry watching him, which means he might have wanted to be alone, away from the eyes of school mates and teachers.

So, bathrooms it is.

Harry thought it might actually be a good idea to check them out before venturing in the cold and grimy dungeons or in the park, out in the rain.

He turned the corner leading to the boys lavatory and slowly walked towards the entrance, putting his ear against the cold wood of the door.

If he strained his ears, he could hear faint snuffling and muffled weeping, as if somebody was crying.

He stuck his hand in the pocket of his school slacks and took out his wand, gripping it with his sweaty hand, and slowly opened the door and peeked inside, immediately recognizing the platinum haired boy standing in front of the mirror.

He was desperately scrubbing his eyes, and the droplets falling on his cheeks were definitely not water from the sink.

He had never seen Draco look so pale, so fragile, so...broken.

He took a step in his direction to...to do what?

He didn’t even know what he wanted to do anymore.

This was the boy he’d hated for years. The one whose father was Voldemort’s servant. The one who had probably pledged alliance himself to Voldemort’s cause. He was evil, and he didn’t deserve Harry’s pity in the slightest. So why was Harry feeling sorry for him? Why was he looking in the eyes of a Death Eater and seeing such pain, such sorrow that it broke him?

Death Eaters didn’t feel sorry for what they were, for what they did.

They were evil and showed no remorse whatsoever.

But Draco was crumbling, like a building whose foundations were too weak to hold its weight.

He was the one who gave Katie the bewitched necklace for Dumbledore.

He was the one who poisoned Slughorn’s mead, which ended up hurting Ron instead of Dumbledore.

He had always acted like being evil never bothered him at all, and yet here he was, crying his eyes out in front of Harry.

Harry’s shoe squeaked loudly when he stepped in a puddle on the floor, and it alerted the other boy, who turned around abruptly and looked Harry in the eye.

The look Harry could see in Draco’s eyes broke him inside.

Even if Harry would never admit it, not even to himself, he’d always liked Draco’s eyes.

You could see so many emotions in them.

When he was angry, they looked like the sea during a storm, like blue and silver waves crashing onto each other and fighting for dominance.

He was usually mostly angry, so Harry had never got to see his eyes like this.

When he was sad, Draco’s eyes turned a lighter shade of silver, like stainless steel reflecting the moonlight.

His eyes were now puffy and red, and they only stood out more if compared to the paleness of his face.

Draco looked terrified, even if Harry didn’t understand why.

Maybe his father had taught him to never show weakness, to never show his true feelings, and maybe that’s why he now looked as if he were naked in front of Harry’s eyes.

He used the sleeve of his white shirt to dry his eyes, quick enough that Harry almost didn’t notice, and maybe that’s what Draco wanted, to pretend that his nemesis hadn’t seen him with tears running down his cheeks.

Harry remembered that he’d come here to confront him, to force him to confess that it was his fault if Katie was hurt, if RON was hurt, and maybe to fight him.

He only now remembered that he was still holding his wand, but he didn’t even remember why he took it out of his pocket in the first place.

He raised his hand, looking at his wand and then at Draco’s face, only to find the other’s wand aimed right at his head.

“Draco, don’t do anything stupid. Please.” Harry said, lowering his wand and putting it back in his pocket, as if to show that he meant no harm.

“Why do you think I would ever listen to you, Potter?” Draco snarled, immediately regaining his cool attitude “You’re not my friend, you’re nothing to me.” Every single one of his words was dripping with venom.

Harry slowly took a step towards Draco, but stopped when he saw how much the arm holding his wand was shaking.

Draco was too nervous to try and cast a spell, Harry knew it. At the moment, he probably couldn’t even think of the right words to cast one.

“Step back!” Draco yelled, but Harry just ignored him, and said “You’re not going to hurt me, Draco.”

He took one step after the other, and soon he was standing right in front of the other boy.

Up close, he could see how swollen Draco’s eyes were from crying, and all his thoughts about confronting him flew out of the window.

“I know it was you who tried to poison Dumbledore.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“And I also know you didn’t really try. Or else you would have succeeded” Harry said, touching Draco’s arm and slowly lowering it.

“You’re not a murderer, Draco. You can act tough all you want, but I know you’re not a bad person.”

“You don’t know me, I could kill you in a heartbeat. And you would kill me too.” Draco was looking at his feet, as if he didn’t have the courage to look Harry in the eyes.

“Maybe I could have killed you a couple years ago, when I really thought I hated you.” Harry took Draco’s wand from his hand and let it fall to the floor.

Draco lifted his gaze and Harry could see that his bottom lip was trembling “And now you don’t?”

“Not anymore.”

Draco’s shoulders began shaking while he let the sobs fall freely from his mouth. He buried his face in the crook of Harry’s neck, and Harry really wanted to do a double take because this could not be happening.

If he told his 13-year-old self that in three years he’d be holding a crying Malfoy in his arms, he’d never believe it.

He brought the slightly taller boy closer with his arms, and let him cry for all he was worth.

“He’s making me do it, but I don’t want to” Draco hiccupped, wetting the collar of Harry’s shirt with his tears.

“I know Draco, I suspected it ever since before school started.”

“You knew?”

“I saw you in Diagon Alley, with your mom and the other guys. I only had suspects, but now you’re kind of confirming my theories” Harry said, touching Draco’s left arm and sliding the sleeve of his shirt up so he could see his forearm.

There, in all its black, evil glory, stood the Dark Mark, tattooed on Draco’s skin.

Draco started crying harder, and Harry held him tighter.

“I never wanted to be a Death Eater. But my father...he’s always been on You-Know-Who’s side, and he’s too much of a coward to step back now.”

Harry had never heard Draco talk about his father like this. He used to be all ‘My father will hear about this, my father will hear about that’, he spoke with such pride when it came to his father, yet now he was admitting that none of it was true. He’d never been proud to be Lucius’s son.

“He’s trying to impress him by offering me as his servant. I’m nothing to him but a way to get back on his good books.”

Draco never talked so much. Harry let him talk.

“He’s always been a Death Eater, for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I never thought much of it, but when I became older...I started thinking that I wanted to be like him. I would have done just about anything to make him notice me. I wanted Slytherin to win the house cup, I wanted to be on the Quidditch team, I wanted to achieve something, anything to make him proud of me. That’s why I hated you so much; you seemed better than me in every aspect of the word, you always put me to shame. And my father would never shut up about you. Even these days, it’s always ‘Potter this, Potter that, Potter fought against Quirrell when he was just eleven, Potter defeated the basilisk, Potter escaped the Dark Lord, Potter always wins, why aren’t you like him Draco? Why are you such a failure?’”

Harry couldn’t believe his words.

He’d always thought that Draco was nothing but a spoiled brat, that he’d always been so mean to him with no reason, but in reality...Draco was just a kid, desperate for affection and in need of approval.

He hugged him tighter.

“I’m so sorry, Draco, I didn’t think...” Harry didn’t know how to finish the sentence, he was at a loss for words.

“You couldn’t have known, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay. I always tried to be better than you, and I didn’t even know how much damage I was causing. If it weren’t for me and my stupid hero-complex, your father wouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he would have been just the same, because you know what? He’s a bad man, and an even worse father.”

“Yeah...” Harry slowly let Draco go, noticing that the tears on his cheeks had long since dried.

Draco sniffed loudly and looked Harry in the eyes, a hint of a smile on his lips.

Harry had to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming, because Malfoy didn’t really smile. He smirked, maybe, or he grinned, but he never smiled whole-heartedly. Not at him, at least.

“Thanks, Harry” Draco said, quite not believing his own ears.

“Anytime. Really” Harry answered, almost laughing at how ridiculous the whole situation looked. He and Malfoy, alone in a bathroom, hugging and talking without tearing each other’s heads off.

“Do you think we might be friends someday?” Harry blurted out, without even thinking. Because really, he and Malfoy...friends?

“Keep dreaming, Potter” Draco said playfully, picking up his wand and smacking him on the back of his head, laughing. He walked towards the door of the lavatory, then turned around to see if Harry was coming too.

Harry started laughing himself and followed him out of the bathroom, out into the hallway. It was packed with people, and they parted ways, as if nothing had happened.

But it had actually happened, and it left Harry thinking.

Maybe someday, they might actually become friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
